A. Related Applications
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed in this or any foreign country.
B. Field of Invention
My invention relates generally to apparatus for the game of golf and more particularly to a tool for establishment of a golf tee in the earth with a golf ball supported thereon.
C. Description of Prior Art
Traditionally in the game of golf, balls are set upon a rigid tee which supports them a short distance above the earth for initial driving. Commonly a golf tee is placed, within certain limits, in the positioned desired by a particular golfer for each drive. The placement of golf tees has heretofore normally been accomplished by unaided manual manipulation, though mechanical tools of various sorts have become known to aid the operation. My invention provides a new and novel tool for this purpose.
Such tools may, for convenience of consideration, be divided into two readily discernable classes, the first comprising devices that insert only a golf tee and the second, comprising devices that insert a golf tee and establish a golf ball supportably thereon. The first class of devices are not of such utility as the second because with them a golf ball must be placed manually after tee placement and that requires very nearly as much effort as the placement of the tee in the first instance. This first class of device therefore, though known, has not found much commercial popularity.
The second class of device places a tee with ball supported thereon, normally in a single operation and usually has provided magazine type storage for either tees, balls or both. My invention constitutes a new and novel member of this class. It is distinguished from the known members of the class in providing a lineally interconnected group or cartridge of tees which is carried in a magazine type storage chamber with an end tee being manually manipuable to be fractured from the remaining group at the time of placement for use. This type of interconnected tee cartridge aids the handling of tees and simplifies their use. While my device is designed particularly to operate with interconnected groups of tees it also will operate, though not so conveniently, with individual tees of the traditional singulated type heretofore known. My invention is further distinguished from the prior art devices by allowing the user to place a predetermined ball, and particularly the ball with which he has theretofore been playing, in operative position on a tee in my device where it is maintained until it is placed whereas many known devices having a magazine type supply of golf balls have allowed placement only of a randomly determined and unselected ball.
My invention further provides for the manual association of ball with golf tee in supportable operative position by the user with subsequent maintenance of this position by mechanical means until after ground placement, both to aid the sureness of placement and the proper positioning of ball relative to tee after placement. Many prior art devices have not provided this sureness but oftentimes have relied upon probabilitistic mechanical functions for placement of ball on tee to give lower degree of reliability than my device. My invention also provides for insertion of a tee in the earth by manual manipulation of an operator so that placement force may be appropriately adjusted to particular conditions and will allow insertion to a particularly desired depth whereas prior art devices oftentimes have provided some type of mechanically activated or aided insertion which did not allow either proper insertive forces or regulation of insertion depth.
My invention lies in the combination of all of these various elements in the particular structure disclosed and not in any one of them per se. It is thusly distinguished both structurally and functionally from the various elements of the prior art either individually or in combination.